Liberated Jewish Captive Who Was Dig His Own Grave Is 'Growing Back to His Previous Personality', Parent States
The father of a freed Israeli hostage who was made to dig his own burial site in a Gaza tunnel has stated that his son's condition is "getting better every day".
The father was commenting after his 24-year-old son the former hostage and two other released captives - another former captive and the third hostage - were discharged from health facility to a celebratory reception at their homes on Sunday.
"It's hard to describe how joyful it makes me to see him coming back to his old self," Avishai David added.
Back in August, two months before the hostage's liberation, the militant group had posted a video revealing him extremely thin in a confined concrete tunnel - a action that received criticism from Israel and several Western leaders.
The parent reported he was delighted to see his son's "energy enhancing every day, his color restoring [to his face], his cheeks becoming fuller".
"Fortunately, he endured and he's tough."
The parent stated he had suffered for several months knowing that his son was only "80 kilometers away... and I can't help him".
"It crushed me," he commented, noting that he "had trouble sleeping, eat, drink properly."
During August, Evyatar's brother Ilay had characterized the militant group recording as a "new form of inhumanity".
"He resembles a skeleton. He was being malnourished to the extent where he can be deceased at any moment, and he experiences a great deal," the brother said at the period.
In the footage its content, the hostage stated: "I haven't consumed food for days... I barely got potable water." He was witnessed shoveling what he declared would be his personal burial site.
On Sunday, celebrating assemblies - featuring numerous companions and local residents - welcomed the former hostage as he arrived to his hometown of Kfar Saba in central Israel.
Dr Michal Shteinman, head at the medical facility where the three freed hostages were attended to, reported their physical conditions still displayed the evidence of "this awful imprisonment".
"We notice their medical tests... and we've also heard their experiences... they are not lying. You can observe the indicators of this physiological injury. Their complexion tells their experience. You can notice the scars and the lesions."
However Dr Shteinman stated further that the hostages "came back tougher than they were earlier".
The former hostage was abducted from the Nova event during the militant group's assault on Israel's southern region on 7 October 2023.
The former captive and another 19 living hostages have been released by the militant group under the first phase of a American-mediated halt in fighting arrangement recently.
Hamas has also transferred 15 out of 28 dead detainees. Thirteen were Israeli citizens, a single person was from Nepal and the remaining Thai.
As compensation, Israeli authorities has liberated 250 Palestinian inmates and one thousand seven hundred eighteen detainees from the Gaza Strip, and repatriated fifteen bodies of Arab individuals for every Israeli captive's corpse.
The IDF launched a defense campaign in the Gaza Strip in response to the 7 October 2023 assault, in which Hamas-led gunmen murdered about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took two hundred fifty-one more individuals hostage.
Over 68,000 individuals have been deceased by Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip from that time, according to the Hamas-run health department, whose statistics are regarded by the international organization as reliable.
